That Orange-Brown Glow
by natodiangelo
Summary: (rewrite) Akashi spent most of his time looking at souls. That's how he found them, that orange-brown soul. /soul-mates AU AkaFuri


*screams* i finally finished this

im gonna try to work on the next chapter but i have school so i gotta get up early and ugh but it shouldnt be too long before its up i hope

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><p>When people die, their souls go to the approximate of Heaven. It was the resting place before they were reborn, all their memories taken away as they're given another chance at living. How long you stayed in Heaven depended on how long you were alive and how you lived your life, among other things. But, for the souls, time was a relative matter. It didn't matter how long you were there as much as how many times you had been alive.<p>

Akashi Seijuurou, as he had been in his most recent past life, had been reborn 87 times exactly, and had been in Heaven for about ten years in Earth time since his last rebirth. He could remember every single one of those lives, down to his very first; the most prominent in his mind was this one just past, however.

Akashi had died rather early in his life. His father had abused him-with words, usually, but it didn't hurt any less. It started after his mother had passed. He became stricter about grades, about his friends, about what he could and couldn't do. Anything less than perfect brought around punishment, he learned early on. It was by some miracle he was allowed to play basketball. The rules still applied to it though, and he stuck to them; every match he played in, he won. He trained tirelessly in any moment he could spare, carefully balancing studies and his private lessons.

Until, in the winter of his final year in high school, he lost a game. His father in a drunken rage had beat him until he could barely move. He had to do his best to hide them when he returned to school the next day, but when he returned home the same fate waited. His grades slowly dropped, only adding to his fathers spite.

It was spring when something snapped in him. The police found his and his fathers bodies a couple days later.

.

In Heaven, they allowed you to look down on Earth. You could look for a specific person, or just watch the every day lives of the living people. As souls, you can see others souls-so, for instance, if you were looking for a person from a past life, you would look for their soul rather than their old face.  
>Akashi spent most of his time looking at souls.<p>

He found them interesting to watch. Sometimes, he would recognize a soul, and that faint tingle of familiarity would bubble up in his chest as he thought back. He would try to remember each soul he saw, and would look for them the next day. It was a game of sorts; everyday he'd look for them, and if he found them, he would look again tomorrow. If not, then the first soul he saw replaced it.

That's how he found them.

The first thing he noticed was the odd color of the soul: orange-brown. It was warm, but also cool, like an early fall evening where summer is finally almost gone from the air. He wondered what kind of personality they would have with a soul like that; kind, he thought, and reserved until they know you.

The draw back of looking down from Heaven were just that: you were here, and they're down there. Personality, features, even the gender of a person cannot be seen from Heaven, which left Akashi frustrated many times, with his need-to-know-it-all nature. None had caught his eye as much as that orange-brown soul, and he yearned to learn about them.

Everyday he would look and find them. Usually continue on and find the others on his list, but every once in a while he'd be too captivated to look away, and he'd spend hours just watching then go about their day.

Could they ever feel him staring, he wondered? Or were they just as oblivious as he had been in his life?

Of course, there were special people who could see auras, the color of people's souls, as well as people whose soul was open with them, so that they could remember things from past lives. You could feel that those were different, even alive.

That was one thing Akashi pondered soon after finding that orange-brown soul - maybe they had one of those abilities? Something in him told him differently however. So he let the thought go until a other idea came to mind: Soul-mates.

They weren't very common - rare, almost, given how many souls there were. But stories came of familiarity for someone you'd never met, a sense of satisfaction just being with them, longing for them when you're apart.

The more he mused it, the more reasonable it sounded - they were his _soul-mate,_ someone he was supposed to be with, someone who _wanted_ to be with him. It made sense; his fixation on them, and how it had never applied to anyone else.

He wanted to meet them. He wanted to be there in front of them, to have the chance to see and talk and touch-

So he did.

It was against the rules for a body-less soul to go to Earth - he was going to get in a lot of trouble if caught, might even be destroyed-but he'd always been somewhat of a risk taker, someone who does as they please without thought.

So he snuck his way to Earth.

He hadn't been reborn, so he had no body - he was what you'd call a ghost; a holographic looking image of him from his past life, no actual body, but he could become tangible if he used enough energy. Not having a body felt weird, but waiting for rebirth would take too long, and he was just happy he didn't look as bloody and beat up as he had when he died.

Finding them took longer than Akashi thought. Without being able to look from above, he had to watch everyone - and even though he'd chosen the area where they lived, there was no guarantee that they would go marching by. He searched, long and hard until evening came and he was tired mentally with still nothing to show for his days work. He splashed through puddles and dead leaves, almost ready to give up for the day when he saw it; just a faint sense he turned his head to, just a brief flash of that orange-brown glow, but he knew it was them. Before he could think he was running, brushing past people without so much as an apology until he reached them, grabbing their wrist with a thankfully substantial hand.

'Them' was a him, about Akashi's height with light brown hair and, when he turned to stare, eyes the same color.

"...Can I help you?" He asked, but Akashi didn't answer, just pulled him away to a cafe he had noticed down the street. He went without protest, and Akashi took that as a good thing rather than something that could possibly get them hurt, going with strangers.

Except Akashi wasn't a stranger. He could see that in his eyes, the familiarity Akashi himself felt. Emotions aren't as strong as they are when you're alive, but he still felt his chest swell.

After going into the cafe and sitting down, Akashi took a minute to just observe the other; his confused expression, eyebrows knitted together and mouth pursed slightly; nose still pink from the cold. He watched Akashi openly staring, and his cheeks began to pink as well.

"Who are you?" he asked after a minute, and Akashi took a second to answer.

"Akashi Seijuurou." he looked a little calmer having a name, but still wary.

"What do you want?" his tone was purely curious, though his words were blunt.

"I don't really know." Akashi answered honestly. "There's plenty of things I want, but only one that I need." Akashi looked him in the eye and said seriously, "We're soul-mates."

His eyes widened, disbelief strong on his face even as Akashi watched his aura flicker.

"It's true," Akashi said, and grabbed his hand off the table, ignoring how he jumped. "Can't you feel it?"

"B-but we're both guys!" his eyes scanned the cafe quickly, like he was afraid of someone hearing; there was only one other person in there, headphones on as they tapped away on their computer.

"Does that really matter?" he froze, and Akashi watched him swallow before slowly shaking his head.

"No, not really, I guess... But it's not really something widely accepted, is it?" Akashi noted that he hadn't said anything of them having just met, of Akashi not even knowing his _name_ yet.

"Do you care?" he looked into Akashi's eyes.

"No."

Akashi let a small smile grace his face, and was rewarded by one just as shy.

"What's your name?" Akashi asked, the pressure on his hand tightening. He looked away nervously, then back.

"Furihata Kouki."


End file.
